SUMMER TV: True Blood, Warehouse 13 & More

Warehouse 13 is back on Tuesday nights on Syfy. I wasn’t impressed with the premiere at all, but the second episode was great nerd fun featuring Jewel Staite and Sean Maher, Firefly’s power couple of cuteness and awesome. What this show lacks in character depth, it makes up with neat gadgets and odes to steampunk. Word is there will be a Farnsworth Device replica at San Diego ComicCon this weekend. Neat.

True Blood is back and everyone is all ‘WOO! True Blood,’ but I can’t seem to get into it. The season two finale cliffhanger nearly killed me, so I was surprised that I really didn’t care about the premiere. I like Sookie and Bill together. Anyway, Bill has been kidnapped by a vampire king (no queen jokes). Sookie is looking for him, but no one wants to help her except Eric who is doing it for his own selfish reasons. There are werewolves. I was on whiskey and Benadryl when the werewolves arrived, so I haven’t quite figured out that whole story.

There is a new sexy evil vampire in town. His name is Franklin Mott, which really isn’t much of a sexy name, but he’s played by an incredibly gaunt and spooky looking James Frain, who will always be Sir Thomas Cromwell (Tudors) to me. He has lost a lot of weight for the role, and I didn’t recognize him until I looked it up, but the hollow cheeks just make him look even more dastardly.

Someone poke me when Bill and Sookie are reunited, and I may start watching again, but something tells me (well tweeple tell me) that they are not in for an easy romance when he gets back. Television writers want to hurt me. It seems to be their main goal. In all fairness to True Blood, they are up for some Emmy’s and the writing is superb, if a tad obsessively dramatic.

I may need to draw you a map to all the Being Human news. Being Human is a BBC show with an utterly stupid premise about a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire sharing a flat. Stupid premise aside, the show is on my favorites list due to the wonderful gore, intriguing characters, excruciating suffering, and good old British wit.

Series three is filming in the UK now. Series two is airing on BBC America starting in this weekend, and Series One is coming to Canada in August on the SPACE Channel, and was also just released on DVD to North America for mass consumption.

Syfy has bought the rights to remake Being Human, America style, only filmed in Canada with a Canadian actress. Which is awesome. Meaghan Roth will play the ghost, with Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington playing her blood-lusting flat-mates. They have different character names, so we’ll see how it compares/differentiates from the mainline BBC series.

If you’re a Being Human virgin, it’s worth tracking down the original pilot. Two of the actors are different, but it is a beautiful piece of television, in a Spaced meets Anne Rice sort of way.

That’s it. My summer recommendation is go get the DVD box set of Being Human, and give cable a rest. Or go to the beach, read a book, something.